No really, I'm okay. I'm also a great liar.

you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling (seven years old)

The baby fat is still clinging to his cheeks as he runs around, laughing without a care in the world. Annabelle's trying to get him to go to bed, because we're reading her Tomoko Maruyama book-Colors of San Francisco, the copy she got for her eleventh birthday and has treasured ever since-and she may be more excited about it than Finn is.

I came across a picture on my phone of me and Rose in high school. It was back when all my hair was blond. (Just the other day, Finn played with a strand of the black part of my hair and asked about it. "I thought everyone had it, but you're the only one, Mommy.")

It took me back even further, to when Rose and I had our very first fight. It was about Annabelle, when she was a name on a screen and Rose told me to not hope for a happy ending with this one.

("I love you, Hazel. And you know I support you. But, this. You're just gonna get hurt! You always dream, but this one's never gonna come true.")

If anything, this made me closer to Annabelle. I spent all night on No really, I'm okay., just scrolling through all the posts about dreams and trying not to cry.

Even now, it still hurts a little bit. But above that, it makes my life, with Annabelle and now Finn, that much sweeter, because this is my dream.

I'm living my dream.

a/n: uM can we talk about the last of the real ones because i love it lots